The European Commission is to start a review of the implementation of the Water Framework Directive (WFD). It is looking increasingly uncertain that any member state will be able to achieve good status in all water bodies by the 2015 deadline and significant use of exemptions and changes to other measures are required.

The UK water industry is fully committed to delivering essential infrastructure and supporting the government's National Infrastructure Plan. However, water supply and availability needs to be at the heart of our decision-making for communities, businesses and agriculture - we can no longer just assume water will be there when and where we need it.